ESPE Abstracts

Background: Children with biallelic GHRHR gene pathogenic variants share a phenotype of growth failure starting in infancy and resulting in a proportionate short stature and bone age delay due to a complete isolated growth hormone (GH) deficiency. The genotype ranges from rare promotor mutations to the more frequent splicing mutations, some genotypes being specific to certain geographic areas. Diagnosis is mainly made around the age of 7 years and more often i...

Background: Pycnodysostosis is a very rare autosomal recessive skeletal dysplasia caused by cathepsin K deficiency. It is characterized by extreme short stature resulting in an adult height in males typically <150 cm and in females <134 cm. Bone-fragility and frequent fractures are present. There are few case-reports on the effects of GH treatment.Objective: To evaluate the effect and safety of GH in 6 patients wit...

Keywords: Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, Parent’s experience, Focus Group DiscussionBackground: Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) leads to many unseen social burdens for parents, including ambiguous genitalia (in girls), lifelong use of medication, including stress dosing, social and psychological pressure, and stigmatization. This study aimed to investigate various lived experiences of parents caring for their...

Objective: Hysterosalpingography (HSG) to assess patency of the Fallopian tubes with the use of iodinated (oil- or water-based) contrast media is a standard test during fertility work-up. An observational study found an increased risk of congenital hypothyroidism in neonates whose mothers were exposed to high amounts of oil-based contrast during HSG. Oil-based contrast contains more iodine (480mg Iodine/ml) than water-based contrast (250mg Iodine/ml). We inves...

Background: Congenital central hypothyroidism (CeH) may occur isolated, or in combination with other pituitary hormone deficiencies. Although a third causative gene for CeH was recently reported (IGSF1), the aetiology of isolated CeH has remained unexplained in most cases.Objective and hypotheses: We hypothesized that in three relatives with unexplained isolated CeH a mutation in another gene might be responsible for the phenotype.<p class="...

Down syndrome (DS) is characterized by a higher incidence of congenital hypothyroidism (CH) and a high prevalence of subclinical hypothyroidism (SH) early in life. Children and adults with DS have an increased risk of developing autoimmune thyroid disease, however CH and early SH cannot be explained by thyroid autoimmunity. The etiology of CH and early SH in DS remains to be elucidated. Considering the recently discovered genome-wide transcriptional and epigenetic alterations ...

Rationale: Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a common complication after preterm birth that is associated with neurodevelopmental impairment. Neurofilament light chain (NfL) has been identified as a biomarker for neuroaxonal damage in preterm infants, but its relation with BPD has not yet been established. We hypothesized that BPD is associated with increased NfL levels at an early stage, indicative of early neuroaxonal damage....

Context: For transgender women undergoing gender-affirming hormone therapy (HT), breast development is an important treatment outcome. Since earlier studies showed small breast volumes in trans women treated with HT, we hypothesized that testosterone exposure during puberty might negatively influence breast development and that early initiation of puberty suppression (PS) might have a positive effect on breast development.Aim:</s...

Context: Congenital hypothyroidism from thyroid dysgenesis (CHTD) is mainly a sporadic and non-syndromic condition occurring in 1:4,000 live births. In contrast to rare cases of syndromic monogenic CHTD, non-syndromic (NS) CHTD shows low familial recurrence risk (~2%) and low concordance rate between MZ twins, suggesting a two-hit scenario combining post-zygotic events with either a de novo monogenic mutation or incomplete penetrance of polyg...

Background: The hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis displays a diurnal rhythm, peaking in the morning and with a nadir at night. However, not much is known about the development of the HPA- axis, although strikingly some evidence suggests that a rhythm with a peak in the afternoon is already present antenatally. We aimed to describe HPA-axis activity at age 1 month as well as study possible influencing factors.Methods</stro...